Perception (22 page)

“Is there something
else?” he asked, joining me.

“I went to Jackson’s
house last night.”

Noah flashed a sharp,
worried look and I answered quickly. “It was fine. His mother was there.”

I could tell by his
expression he didn’t care if the King of England had been there. He clearly didn’t
like me being anywhere near Jackson.

“He told me about the
experiment,” I said.

“So, what’s the
scoop?”

“My brother died
because he was greedy.”

“What do you mean?”

“He was after eternal
life.”

“I believe in eternal
life.”

“Not the way Liam did.
He wanted to interface his mind with a hard drive, and cyborg his body, so when
his organic body finally died, he could live on in a robotic one.”

“Wow. That’s junk.”
Noah stretched his arm up and around my shoulders. “I’m sorry. This must be
hard for you.”

“I think my
grandfather is involved.”

His eyebrows shot up
in surprise. “How?”

“I don’t know. He’s a
director of that fake company. There’s got to be a reason for that.”

“But there could be a
dozen reasons, none of them to do with Liam.”

“Except that Liam’s chip
opened the door.”

“True.”

“I don’t want to
believe Grandpa V had anything to do with this, but I can’t rule him out. Who
else did Liam know with the kind of money this type of research would take? And
Grandpa V
is
running for president. He might be thinking this technology
could come in handy some day.”

“Even if he did
finance it,” Noah said, “He wouldn’t have sabotaged it.”

“Grandpa V has
enemies.”

“Zoe, if it’s true
that your grandfather was involved with illegal research activities that
resulted in a death, and we can prove it, he could go to jail.”

I scowled. “If he’s
guilty, then he deserves to go to jail.”

“Okay. What do you
want to do?”

“Grandpa’s house in
Sol City is well secured but empty. I thought maybe Anthony could hack in and
disable the alarm system. It’s not as complex as the tower.”

Noah stared off into
the distance.

“Am I pushing too
hard?” I said. “I know your life has turned upside down since you started
hanging out with me. I understand if you’ve had enough of me and my problems.”

“No, that’s not it. I
haven’t had enough of you.” He cracked a smile. “That’s part of the problem.”

“So will you help me?”

“You know, Zoe, two
weeks ago, the only crime I was guilty of was disturbing the peace.”

I cocked an eyebrow. “Is
that a yes or a no?”

“It’s a yes.”

I beamed at him. “Good.”

My ComRing buzzed. I
tapped it and frowned.

“What is it?”

“It’s a message from
Jackson.” I turned my palm so he could read it.

Mitchell is dead.
Be careful.

Chapter 29

“Mitchell is dead?”
Noah said. “And why is Jackson telling you to be careful?”

I rested my hand on his
knee. “Jackson was afraid they would try to kill
him
. I thought he was
just exaggerating so he wouldn’t have to tell me who the muscle was behind the
experiment. Looks like they killed Mitchell instead.”

Noah tapped his feet,
fidgeting. “This is starting to get dangerous.”

“What are you saying?”

“I’m saying maybe we
should just leave this alone. Nothing we find out will bring your brother back.
We already got caught in the lab by Mitchell. I’d hate for something like that
to happen again.”

“Mitchell was a
surprise, but we’ll be more careful this time. I know I can’t have my brother
back, but I can have the truth. It’s the only way I’ll get closure.”

Noah squeezed my
shoulders firmly. “You know I’m not letting you out of my sight. You’re stuck
with me. Like glue.”

“I want to be stuck
to you,” I said lightly.

He held his hand in
front of his face and tapped his ring. “Before we do our daily break and enter,
I need to call home.”

“Oh, Noah, I’m so
selfish. You should be at home with your mother.”

How quickly I’d
forgotten that I wasn’t going to drag him into this. I had to release him to go
home, maybe even force him to go. I’d have to figure out a way to find out what
I needed to know by myself.

“It’s okay. Skye is
there. And Jonathon.”

“Are you sure? What
if something happens?”

“They’ll contact me
if there’s any change.”

He tapped his ring
again and spoke Anthony’s name. He gave the instructions, pausing to ask me for
my grandfather’s address and telling him to let us know if and when the alarm
system was down.

He turned to me. “Any
other criminal activities you’d like me to set up for you, Miss Vanderveen?”

“No, I think you’ve
done quite enough, Mr. Brody.”

Noah reached up and
stroked my cheek, the tenderness of his touch sending shivers down my spine. Then
he kissed me lightly, like butterfly wings touching my lips. We twisted
together, kissing and laughing, and I thought it was a good thing, at least
from Noah’s perspective, that the space in the clock tower was too small for
anything too serious to happen. As it was, the light had dimmed, and a red glow
was peeking through the slats of the railing as the sun set.

“We should get going,”
I said between kisses. “It’s getting dark.”

He took a few moments
to get his breath. “Ah yeah, must get back to the life of crime.”

“Have you heard from
Anthony?”

Noah checked his ComRing.
“He left a text.” He let me see it. It said,
DONE
.

We held hands all the
way back to Sol City. Electric fibers seemed to disperse from his touch,
cocooning my being and making me giddy. Was this what falling in love felt
like? No one in LA gave us or our PDA a second look, and I liked it that way.

My heart stopped for
a moment when Noah entered Sol City with Liam’s chip, but again there was no
problem. It was Sunday. Tomorrow Paul would probably close up all accounts
associated with Liam, and I’d have no way of getting Noah inside.

Which meant I’d just
have to go outside.

I could move. Get a
job. Be like them.

I could.

We got to my pod–Paul
had re-instated my use of it because he believed Noah was no longer part of my
life–and I spoke the name of a park close to my grandfather’s house. “Vanderveen
Park.”

Noah raised his
eyebrows. “You have a park named after you?”

“Among other things.”

“No Brody parks or
any other Brody thing that I know of,” he said.

He was underlining our
differences. Why did he keep doing that? I supposed it was wise not to forget
them entirely. I tried to imagine what the future held after whatever happened
next with my grandfather, after Liam’s mystery was solved.

Noah was taking in
the Sol City sights: the pristine grounds, the organized traffic control, the creative
architecture, the breath-taking landscaping.

“It’s mind blowing,”
he said.

“I know you said before
that you’d never... but now, maybe, if you had a sponsor, you’d reconsider?”

Could he ever be
convinced to become a GAP?

A flicker of
disappointment gripped me when he shook his head. “I could never live in a
place like this. Sure, Sol City is beautiful, but I’d never fit in. I don’t
have the right look, and I don’t have the right philosophy. That will never
change.”

We arrived at
Vanderveen Park. I’d chosen it because it was widely used and showing up at my
grandfather’s house with my pod while intending to break and enter wouldn’t be
very smart. The sandy beaches the park breached had remnants of the day’s
surfers and picnickers. New arrival partiers logged in for the evening, even
though the wind had picked up.

I parked the pod and
said to Noah, “Follow me.”

He grinned. “I plan
to.”

We walked two blocks
south until we came to the gate at the end of a long drive. The old Victorian-style
mansion was painted pale grey and had a short iron rail lining the roof top.
The security lights that remained on 24/7 had been turned off, which gave the
big house a Gothic aura.

“No bats?” Noah said,
staring.

The wind whipped off
the ocean and through the oak trees that surrounded the house and dotted the
extensive yard. I pulled my hair off my face and tied it into a knot. Dark
clouds along the horizon added to the haunted affect.

“Anthony does
impressive work,” I said.

“I only hang out with
the best.”

He motioned to the
iron barricade. “I imagine the gate is locked?”

“I know a way in.”

I pushed through the
hedges that surrounded a wire fence. We had to balance over tall, dark rocks
that jutted into the ocean. The wire fence continued into the Pacific,
deterring would-be trespassers.

We came upon a small
cove behind the rocks that was hidden by the hedge.

“The fence is pulled
up over there. You can’t see it because of the hedge. We spent a lot of time
here with Grandpa V and my parents when we were younger, before he started
pursuing politics. It's a short cut to the public beach.”

I wiggled headfirst
under the fence, wincing as the wire scraped along my back. I wasn’t as small
as I used to be. It was harder for Noah, and I pulled up on the wire to help
him through.  Once inside, we raced across the vast lawn. Lightning streaked
the grey sky, followed by a loud crash of thunder.

“Quick,” I said,
dodging under a covered patio facing the ocean, just as a deluge of water fell
from the sky.

“Now what?” Noah
said, shaking water from his head like a puppy.

I pointed to an upper-level
window. “The lock on that window is broken. Whenever my parents would travel,
Liam and I were shipped to Grandpa V’s. We never told anyone about the lock,
because it gave us a way to sneak out and get back in again.”

“How do you get up
there?”

I pointed to an oak
tree planted near the back of the house with a large branch that almost brushed
against the window.

I climbed first with
Noah right behind me. Once on the gable, the window opened easily. I swung my
legs over the sill and landed with a soft thump on the floor.

The room had a day
bed with a lace covering and a slew of pillows. An old-fashioned sewing machine
in a wooden cabinet sat next to it. Three headless seamstress mannequins lined
one wall adding to the eeriness of the night. Lightning flashed across the
darkened room and Noah jumped.

“What is this place?”

“It’s my
grandmother’s sewing room. She was into fashion design when she was younger.”

“Creepy.”

I turned on the
flashlight feature of my ComRing and Noah followed suit.

“Where is your
grandmother now?”

“She was almost ten
years older than Grandpa V, too old to take advantage of the gene alteration
procedure to extend her life. She died before I was born. Grandpa was
devastated. He never remarried and never got rid of her stuff.”

The hallway outside
the room was lined with pictures. Noah flashed his light along the paintings. All
were expensive or priceless and by famous artists, new and old.

“Grandpa invests in
art,” I explained.

Even though we were
alone in the house and the security was turned off, I still felt compelled to
whisper and walk softly.

“Grandpa’s office is
downstairs. Let’s start there.”

I led the way down an
impressive, curving stairwell, lined with lush red carpeting. Grandpa V’s
office was toward the back of the house, facing the ocean.

Our rings shone rays
on extravagant furniture and ornaments. Glass-laden chandeliers hung from high
ceilings in almost every room. Lightning flashed repeatedly and debris blown by
the strong winds smacked against the windows.

The door to Grandpa
V’s office was closed, but it pushed open without a creak.

I went directly to
his desk, and stared at the darkened computer screen.

“I’m not sure what to
do here,” I said. “I wish we could just flip through old-fashioned filing
cabinets that had copies of incriminating papers, like in old movies.”

“Security is down,
but there’s still power to the house,” Noah said.

I pushed the button
and the computer whirled to life. “I have no idea what his password might be.”

A voice echoed from
the corner, “And you’ll never guess.”